It is odd to stand at an iconic place few can ever visit. There on Mount Suribachi where the American flag was raised over Iwo Jima, I am embarrassed to report my first thought on looking out across at the military airport we landed at that morning was, "I have to walk back there in the next two hours."
Though the marines subdued the highest ground sufficiently to raise that famous flag just a few days after landing on Feb. 19, 1945, weeks of death and horror would follow as they struggled across the few miles to the other end of the island. Iwo Jima wasn't officially declared secure until March 26. The last Japanese military personnel to surrender on the island did so in 1949, and one of those committed suicide on a return visit a few years later.